Health officials see 6 more likely SARS cases

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 4-12-03 | DAVE NEWBART

[Prince Charles]

Health officials see 6 more likely SARS cases

April 12, 2003

BY DAVE NEWBART, STAFF REPORTER

State health officials reported six more suspected cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome Friday, including for the first time five cases where the virus apparently was transmitted in-state.

In one outbreak, a 30-year-old man who recently returned from China infected four other people in his household. The cases were considered mild, with only a 75-year-old man being hospitalized. He is expected to be released soon.

In another outbreak, a 46-year-old woman was infected by a 48-year-old man who had been to Hong Kong. She was not hospitalized.

The cases bring the total number of suspected victims of the illness to 15 statewide. But officials emphasize that none of the cases have been verified by laboratory tests being done by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials also said the public is not at risk because local health departments had already notified anyone who had been in close contact with the infected people.

"There is no reason to believe the general public is at risk,'' said Eric Whitaker, Illinois' public health director.

All of the new cases involved victims in the Chicago area who ranged in age from 3 to 76. They all had temperatures of at least 100.5 degrees and respiratory symptoms such as a cough, difficulty breathing and pneumonia.

Citing confidentiality concerns, officials would not release when the travel to Asia took place, when the travelers fell ill and when the so-called secondary transmittal took place.

Despite the transmittals, officials said they have worked hard to educate the public about the disease.

"I don't think it's for lack of education,'' Whitaker said of the new cases, but he acknowledged "maybe someone slipped through the cracks.''

There have been no deaths from SARS in the United States, although there have been 166 suspected cases.

SARS has killed 116 people worldwide and sickened more than 2,700 in 20 nations, including Indonesia and the Philippines, officials said Friday.

Hong Kong, home to more than one-third of all cases and a quarter of all deaths, plans to take the temperatures of travelers at airports and keep anyone showing SARS symptoms from boarding a plane or crossing land and sea borders.

Also Friday, the World Health Organization began investigating Beijing's health system, where problems may have allowed the disease to spread since it was first found there late last year.

Meanwhile, researchers released more evidence suggesting SARS may be caused by a new coronavirus, a bug that ordinarily causes common colds.

Contributing: AP

[Sabatier]

"In another outbreak, a 46-year-old woman was infected by a 48-year-old man who had been to Hong Kong. She was not
hospitalized."

Not hospitalized? Free to go out and cough all over everybody?

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[realpatriot]

"Citing confidentiality concerns, officials would not release when the travel to Asia took place, when the travelers fell ill and when the so-called secondary transmittal took place. "

Anyone else have a problem when this statement?